ALBANY >> Two weeks like no other in the history of New York state government ended Friday with the felony convictions of Senate leader Dean Skelos and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, but what happens next is far from clear.

Silver and Skelos will likely appeal and also file to collect their estimated $95,000-a-year state tax-free pensions for life. But it remains to be seen if Albany will change anything in how it does business, with power concentrated in the hands of the now infamous “three men in a room.”

Gov. Andrew Cuomo, one of the three men, dodged questions from the press as the Skelos jury deliberated, then put out an statement after the jury verdict to the effect that the conviction was a “wake up call.” The generic choice of words echoed previous Cuomo “wake up calls” he issued following Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and the shooting at an Oregon college in October.

Then, late Friday night he vetoed two bills to strengthen the state’s Freedom of Information law, a decision that the reform group Reinvent Albany had portrayed as his “first post-Skelos test.” Instead, on Saturday he issued an executive order to “expedite” the FOIL process.

Advertisement

“Cuomo vetoed two bills that would have made New York’s government more transparent and accountable,” the group said late Friday. “The governor was given a clear choice between being part of the problem in Albany or part of the solution. These vetoes call into question the governor’s commitment to transparency and Freedom of Information.

Cuomo said Saturday he didn’t want to give people seeking public records an incentive for “irresponsible litigation by ensuring state agencies are not forced to pay attorney fees.”

Cuomo was already under attack from reform groups for not offering a more robust response to the unprecedented arrests and convictions of the two leaders of the Legislature. “For @NYGovCuomo not to call now for special legislative session is to aid and abet the rampant corruption in Albany,” an irate Dick Dadey of Citizens Union posted on his Twitter account Friday.

The veto came just hours after a federal jury convicted Skelos (R-Nassau County) and his adult son, Adam, on all charges, less than two weeks after another jury reached the same verdict against Silver (D-Manhattan) on November 30.

Following the conviction, Senate Deputy Majority Leader John DeFrancisco threw cold water on the need for any new anti-corruption laws in Albany, reasoning that all the legislators have been convicted under existing law.

“Each of the people who are on that Hall of Shame ... is somebody who was guilty of existing law,” DeFrancisco, R-Syracuse, told syracuse.com. ”Whether it’s failing to report certain things on expense reports, bribery, using their office for their own personal benefit – that’s all existing law.”

That’s the same view held by Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) who has ruled out any further reforms as unnecessary. Following Skelos’s conviction, Senator Majority Leader John Flanagan (R-Suffolk County), said little more than he was “saddened” by the turn of events.

Both Silver and Skelos automatically lost their seats upon conviction. Skelos had been a legislator since 1980, and Silver since 1977, making them nearly contemporaries of Cuomo, who got his start in politics helping elect his father Mario in 1982.

“Dean and Adam Skelos found guilty of all charges,” U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara announced on Twitter Friday afternoon. “The swift convictions of Sheldon Silver and Dean Skelos beg an important question: How many prosecutions will it take before Albany gives the people of New York the honest government they deserve?”

Dean Skelos, 67, and Adam, 33, were charged with shaking down businesses for about $300,000, with the money going directly to the son. The money was paid by three businesses. The payments were authorized by executives who testified they feared Skelos because of the risk of retribution because of his vast political power in the state.

Skelos was first elected to the Legislature in 1980, served in the Senate since 1985 and was majority leader from 2011. He was arrested on May 4 and was forced out as majority leader on May 11.

The Empire Center for Public Policy revealed Friday that Skelos has been able to rack up state pension credits since 1973, when he was a college student. He somehow managed to get into the lucrative Tier 1 pension plan just two days before it was closed to new enrollees.

The jury found the father and son guilty on three counts of extortion under the color of official right, one count of conspiracy to commit extortion, one count of conspiracy to commit honest services fraud, and three counts of soliciting bribes.

In closing arguments, Skelos’s lawyer said he was only trying to help his son and broke no crimes. He said the evidence was only “snippets” and “innuendo,” and as he spoke displayed a sign that said in capital letters “NOTHING HAPPENED.”

Media reports said federal prosecutors spoke of how Skelos used his “enormous public power for Adam Skelos’s enormous private gain.” The prosecutor compared Skelos’s actions to the plot of a children’s book, “Where the Sidewalk Ends.”

“That’s kind of what it’s like here – the gorilla in this case is the power of the office of the Senate majority leader,” the prosecutor said, adding that the majority leader’s “power – his gorilla – is right there, breathing in your face.”

The trial, which ran for four weeks, saw two unusual moments.

Dean Skelos approached Bharara during a break in the court proceeding, seeking a handshake. “Let me introduce myself. I think we met at one of the funerals,” Skelos said, according to Newsday. Bharara looked away and said nothing.

The “funeral” remark referred to wiretaps where Adam Skelos is heard making unseemly remarks about the “ridiculous amount of funerals lately” he’s had to attend for fallen firefighters and police officers. “Do you find that at wakes and funerals, people tend to get a lot of business done?” Adam is heard on one tape. After the wake for Wenjian Liu, an officer murdered in 2014, Skelos is saying wakes are good places “to get a lot of business done.”

In the second unusual moment, Adam Skelos accused Cuomo of being corrupt. “Of the three men in the room that were running the state, two of them are crooked politicians. My dad’s not one of them,” Skelos told reporters as he entered court Wednesday.

The convictions of Silver and Skelos leaves only Cuomo left as one of the three men in a room who ran state government when the session began in January. Cuomo has not been charged with any wrongdoing, but Bharara has examined the circumstances surrounding his shutdown of the Moreland Commission investigation of Albany corruption.

“There can be no tolerance for those who use, and seek to use, public service for private gain,” Cuomo said in his statement on Skelos’s conviction. “The justice system worked today. However, more must be done and will be pursued as part of my legislative agenda. The convictions of former Speaker Silver and former Majority Leader Skelos should be a wakeup call for the Legislature and it must stop standing in the way of needed reforms.”